The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Monday, April 4, 2016

How Obama plans to open up the American banking system to the Mullahs.

Last July, when the Administration had been intent on closing a
nuclear deal with Iran and selling it to a skeptical American Congress
and public, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew testified
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, emphatically stating
that after the deal, Iran will continue to be denied access to the
American banking system. “Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S.
dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with
U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with
U.S. banks,” he said.

And while testifying before the Senate
Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs in September, Acting
Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam Szubin
said, “No Iranian banks can access the U.S. financial system; not to
open an account, not to purchase a security, and not even to execute a
dollarized transaction‎ where a split seconds worth of business is done
in a New York clearing bank.”

There are a multitude of reasons
why this is an excellent idea. For starters: Iran is the world’s
leading state sponsor of terrorism and launders money to be sent all
around the world to their terrorist network and terror proxies in Syria,
Lebanon, Iraq , Bahrain, Yemen and Gaza.

Allowing Iran to
participate in the US banking system will only add more dollars into
their coffers to be transferred to their destabilizing and terrorist
proxies. In February, the Financial Action Task Force, an
inter-governmental body which is established to protect the
international financial system from threats to its integrity, issued a public statement
that “reaffirms its call on members and urges all jurisdictions to
advise their financial institutions to give special attention to
business relationships and transactions with Iran, including Iranian
companies and financial institutions.”

Yet, because the
avaricious Islamic Republic has been complaining that they are not
getting as much cash as they want, as fast as they want, we are seeing
signals that the Administration is back-pedaling on this, breaking
another commitment made to Congress and the American people while trying
to peddle the deal.

As of the last several days, the
Administration is beginning to toss out trial balloons to the foreign
policy world that sanctions are no longer desirable, and that Iranian
banks can be connected to the American banking system. In a Washington Post piece this week, David Ignatius reported
that Treasury Secretary Lew spoke at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, last week, making the case against the “overuse” of
sanctions. Mr. Lew had made the argument that since the sanctions had
been useful “to pressure bad actors to change their policy, we must be
prepared to follow through with relief when we succeed.” Secretary Lew said “Since Iran has kept its end of the deal, it is our responsibility to uphold ours, in both letter and spirit.”

What evidence, however, is there that Iran has kept its end of the
deal? According to Army General Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. military
commander overseeing the Middle East, “there are a number of things that
lead me to personally believe that…their behavior is not — they haven’t
changed any course yet.” General Austin was addressing a Senate Armed
Services Committee hearing in early March.

Of greatest concern
to General Austin and others, is the issue of Iran launching multiple
missiles tests; the most recent ones had the words printed in both Farsi
and in Hebrew that “Israel will be wiped out.”

That is not a
very subtle message about the true intentions of the Iranian regime. So
much for the Obama administration’s hope that the Iranian nuclear deal
would lead “to a constructive period of engagement for the region that
will actually stabilize it and make it easier to fight ISIL…and to do
things that we need to do to reduce violence and pressures of the
region,” as Secretary of State John Kerry had stated on August 11th of last year.

The Administration, of course argued that missile launching is outside
the narrowly-defined scope of the nuclear deal. As James Kirby of the
State Department said,
“Such tests, if they are true, are not a violation of the JCPOA.” Mr.
Kirby added, “If they are true, we have every intention of raising [it]
with the UN Security Council.”

Of course, with Russia and China as Iran’s defenders in the
Security Council, we know that this will be a hollow act. At worst, the
UNSC will slap them on the wrists.

While the Administration
was making its case for the deal, they had argued that all of Iran’s
other nefarious behaviors, including Iran’s land grab throughout the
region, its egregious human rights abuses and the rapid stepping up of
executions of gays, dissidents and minorities, and its launching of
missiles, would all be outside the framework of the agreement.

We all know that the intention of these missiles is to put a payload of nuclear material in their warhead.

And, as of now, the Obama administration is about to supplement the
excess of 100 billion dollars in sanctions relief by giving the Iranians
access to our financial system, thereby severely compromising the
integrity of the US dollar and the worldwide financial system, and
making it easier for Iran to further foment mischief around the globe.

It should be mentioned that this past Wednesday Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Kirk wrote a letter
to Secretary Lew, asking for assurances that the United States will not
work on behalf of Iran to enable Iran access to the US financial system
or to dollar transactions outside the US financial system.

However, when it comes to the Iranians, there is no reason to trust any
assurances made by this Administration. The threat of their balking from
the deal seems to be holding the Administration over a barrel. Since
the deal was agreed to, the Obama administration has virtually made
itself into the attorneys representing the Islamic Republic, and
apparently are now enabling it to participate in our financial sector.

The Iranians are apparently allowed to threaten a member state of the
United Nations with nuclear annihilation, and defy the convention on the
prevention of committing genocide.

Whoever will be occupying
the oval office next January will be inheriting an empowered Iran, well
on the path to obtaining nuclear weapons, and an Iran which may well be
using American dollars in service of this unspeakable objective.

Sarah
N. Stern is Founder and President of the Endowment for Middle East
Truth, an unabashedly pro-Israel and pro-American think tank and policy
institute in Washington, DC.